Gourmet Ads vs. Ad Servers: 5 reasons not to use DFP

If you’re trying to decide between Gourmet Ads and an ad server for your site’s advertising, look no further. Simply put, Gourmet Ads replaces the need for a DFP ad server. We manage and optimize campaigns in real time, allowing for maximum earnings. Many publishers hear that using an ad server such as Google’s DFP, is the best way to achieve maximum ad earnings. This is a false. The only true benefit to an ad server is for sites that have a large percentage of direct-to-advertiser sales. Besides being unnecessary, here are some real cons for using DFP:

High cost of time and money

These days, Ad Servers are very sophisticated. You’ll need to learn to administer your ad server and prioritize your ads. While DFP appears simple, ad prioritization and placement is a difficult skill and requires daily attention as ad prices rise and fall. All of this takes time away from creating great content.

You may need to hire a DFP expert which isn’t hard to find, but will erode revenue.

Resources are better spent on growing site traffic than in managing tags in an ad server.

2. Privacy

Google gives nothing away for free there is always a cost, and oftentimes it’s your, or your user’s personal data.

Ad servers are often linked with browser cookies that track users, and have been criticized for misleading users by offering an opt-out option that is insufficient and does not allow users to opt out of IP address-based tracking.

Latency

With DFP you have to prioritize your ads into a waterfall. This causes a latency (slower load time) as there will be delays involved in “waterfalling” tags. This makes for a poor user experience and lower CPMs.

4. Customer service

Being the biggest in the business comes with a cost. High turnaround times for tickets is the norm, even for some of their largest sites. And there are no assigned account managers who are familiar with your site.

The Adsense advantage

Google has built in ”first look” for their ad network, Adsense. This allows Adsense to cherry pick which of your impressions they want without having to compete with your other network partners. This can leave money on the table when your other network partners may pay more for an impression then Adsense. In addition, this scenario makes reporting very difficult when you are unable to compare Adsense to your other partners in an equal environment

Conversely, there are real benefits to using Gourmet Ads as your ad network and placing ad tags directly on your page without using an ad server, including:

By placing ad tags directly on your page, it’s a “one and done” process. Once the tags are placed, our network partners are able to optimize on the backend, giving you the greatest return.

Quality

The winners are chosen for your site based on the network partner’s performance, no bias for favoritism from the ad server.

Customer Service

Our goal is to allow you to focus on creating amazing content, which is why our support ticketing system, and account management team are second-to-none. We’re known for being highly responsive to your needs, and regularly offer account reviews and optimization suggestions to help you meet your revenue goals.